Too Young to Die

Apparently cheerleading gave me a lot of negative feelings. I regularly have nightmares involving Heather, ring leader of the bitchy girls, also my other former catty teammates, and my mom who tried to instill rules and truly coach it as a sport.

If I were suspicious I would say it’s Heather’s way of haunting me from the grave and getting the last word in.  As a practical person, I guess it’s just unresolved issues.  But how to resolve them when the person involved is no longer with us?

Also, speaking of high school and people no longer with us–I found out this week that my prom date died.  I met him through Mary (you remember her, no doubt), my first boss.  She set me up to go to MY prom with her nephew who lived in the Reno area.  But he asked me to his prom, called me, and we went on several movie and food dates that year.

Both proms were fun, but then I never heard from him again.  Just suddenly too, so I never knew what happened.  But I had a lot of other things going on (realizing I was gay, for one) so I didn’t think about him too much.

So the Minor family gossip told my mom who told me the news.  Which wasn’t detailed at all.  Drugs.  Don’t know exactly how.  Didn’t find out where.  It made me sad.  It seems so avoidable, and he was too young to go.  What a waste.  Drugs are horrible.  It also made me insanely curious–nobody knows what occurred -how does that happen?  I hope to hear of more details just to feel a little more settled about it.

Teddy’s dad said he doesn’t care.  Which is definitely the Minor family way of dealing with things–acting hard-hearted and going into denial   It’s frustrating, because of COURSE a father cares if his son dies.  Even if they didn’t have a good relationship in life.  Even if the son is on drugs or acting like a monster.  Especially when the only other sibling died at 17 years old.

It was a strange thing to find out.  And both deaths of people I sort of knew at one point (at least saw frequently) made me feel bad.  I can’t call myself close to either Heather (I DIDN’T like when she was alive) or Teddy (who I guess ditched me) but they are still young lives lost.  And I wonder what goes on in the region, because that isn’t the first or even the second person I’ve known in Northern Nevada to die too young. . .